[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[February 20, 1998]
[Pages 257-259]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at the Holiday Park Senior Center in Wheaton, Maryland
February 20, 1998
Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I want to thank all of you for being here today and
particularly those of you who have been active in health care. I thank
Secretary Shalala and Deputy Secretary
Higgins and Secretary
Herman, who worked very hard on this; and
Hershel Gober, the Deputy Secretary of
Veterans Affairs; and Janice Lachance and
Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, all the people
who are here from the administration. General Hill, thank you for being here.
I'd like to thank County Council President Leggett and all the local officials who are here. A special
word of thanks to Chris Jennings in
the White House. You know, the staff people who work on these things
never get enough credit. This is great--the Vice President and I get up
here, and we give these speeches, and you think how wise we are.
[Laughter] And the truth is, there is always somebody making us look
smarter than we are. [Laughter] And I'm very grateful to all the people
who worked on
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this, who passionately care about you and people like you all over this
country who never get the acknowledgements they deserve.
I thank Beth Layton and all the people
here at Holiday Park for the work you're doing. I've been feeling very
sentimental here. Twenty-one years ago, I'm almost sure it was 21 years
ago this month, when I was a very young public official in my very first
office of service, I had the State's first conference on senior citizens
affairs. I never will forget it. I had it in the same place where I had
my high school prom. [Laughter] And now I have my AARP card. [Laughter]
I'm amazed at how farsighted I was back then to be concerned about this.
I thank Marty Wish for his remarkable
statement and for reminding us why we're working so hard. The first
person I heard tell that story about ``As Good As It Gets'' was the
Vice President. And every time anybody sees
that movie, they always cheer. I understand it's going to be
disqualified for an Academy Award because it's too close to real life.
[Laughter]
I want to thank Representative Morella and Representative Stark
for being here and for their efforts to make health care quality a
bipartisan American issue, not a partisan political issue. And I thank
you both for being here. Thank you very much.
We were going to have one other person here today, a woman named
Dian Bower from California, whose son has a very
serious illness that's being treated in a veterans military--excuse me,
a military managed care program. And she's very well satisfied with it
but passionately committed to the concept of a Patients' Bill of Rights.
But because of the very difficult weather our fellow Americans in
California have been experiencing--I'm sure you've been keeping up with
it--she was unable to come. But I would like to thank her for efforts to
be here.
I'm pleased to accept this report from the Vice President. I just have to say one word about him. I asked
the Vice President to undertake a very--what appeared to be a completely
thankless job. When we took office, we had a deficit of $290 billion,
and I said, ``Look, we have to find a way to reduce the Federal payroll
by a minimum of 100,000, and we have to do it without throwing anybody
in the streets, and we have to do it without losing the confidence of
Federal employees or breaking their morale. They have to feel good about
this.'' In other words, I was asking him to take two and two and make
three or five or something other than four. And he worked with the
Federal employees groups. Five years later, with the strong support and
work and partnership of the Federal employees organization, the Federal
payroll is 300,000 smaller than it was the day I took office. And--and--
we have had good early retirement programs for the Federal employee. We
have worked with them in a constructive way. The Government is working
better, and it has freed up money to invest in putting another 100,000
police on the street, in improving education and advancing the
environment and doing all these things.
But as part of our philosophy of government, we want a Government
that is both smaller and more active, that gives people the tools to
make the most of their own lives and acts as a catalyst for new ideas.
And that's what we're doing here today. And this is perhaps the best
example of all the wonderful work the Vice President has done in 5 years of reinventing Government, of how you
can have a Government that's smaller and still does more to meet the
real needs of the American people. So I want to thank him for that.
What this report does is point out that we are quite close to making
sure that our Federal health plans actually comply with the Patients'
Bill of Rights that I have proposed. And today after I speak I am going
to sign a directive over here on this desk which directs all our Federal
agencies to finish the job by taking the necessary steps outlined in the
Vice President's report to me.
Now, I want you to understand clearly what this will mean--just this
action will mean to the lives of the American people. With the authority
of the Federal Government, we will ensure that a third of all
Americans--a third of all Americans--are protected by a Patients' Bill
of Rights. Now, that's every person on Medicare, every person on
Medicaid, including children and people with disabilities, all of our
Federal employees and their families that are covered, all of our
military personnel, and members of the biggest health care system in
America, all of our veterans and all their families.
A third of the American people will have now a Patients' Bill of
Rights that says this: You have the right to know all your medical
options, not just the cheapest; you have a right to choose a specialist
for the care you need; you have the right to emergency room care
wherever and
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whenever you need it; you have the right to keep your medical records
confidential--very important; you have the right to bring a formal
grievance or appeal of a health care decision with which you disagree.
And we are proving we can make these rights real now for nearly 90
million Americans. That's how many people we're talking about. And we
can do this without increasing the deficit, without burdening the system
or consumers. With this step we are setting a standard for the Nation.
But we must not stop here. And that's why I am so glad to see
Congresswoman Morella and
Congressman Stark here, because now the
Congress must pass national legislation to protect all Americans with a
Patients' Bill of Rights. We are doing all we can do here with the
stroke of the President's pen, but it should be an example that the rest
of America should follow.
I know there will be voices of opposition in the Congress and in the
health care industry. But every American deserves the protection of a
Patients' Bill of Rights. Those of you who are retired Federal employees
who are still under a plan, you will be covered today. I bet you feel
just as strongly as you did before I came here to sign this that
everybody whose not in a plan you're in deserves the same protection.
And we need to be clear and unambiguous about that.
I look forward to working together with Members of Congress in both
parties who have shown the determination to do something about this.
This Patients' Bill of Rights is in keeping with our profoundest
obligations to our parents, to our children, to the neediest, to the
most vulnerable among us, in keeping with our oldest ideals enshrined in
the Bill of Rights, and it is an essential part of our effort and our
obligation to strengthen our Nation for the 21st century.
We want the benefits of managed care. We all like it when health
care inflation is not going up at 3 and 4 and 5 times the rate of
inflation. It gives all of you who are on fixed incomes more disposable
income for other things that are terribly important to you. But we must
never, ever, ever sacrifice the fundamental quality of care and the
security that gives people, knowing that they live in a country that not
only has the best health care system in the world in theory, it's the
best in the world, in fact, in their lives.
Now, the Vice President talked about some of the things we have been
doing in the last several years. A couple of years ago, Congress passed
a law I strongly supported that says you can't lose your health
insurance if you change jobs because someone in your family has been
sick. The balanced budget amendment that I signed into law last year
extends the Medicare Trust Fund until 2010. And we now have a Medicare
commission meeting and working on how to preserve and protect Medicare
well into the 21st century.
The balanced budget law also contains an unprecedented $24 billion
over the next 5 years to add up to 5 million more children to the ranks
of the insured. And we're working with the States to do that. And
Secretary Shalala is doing a great job in
working with the States to make sure that we pick up more of these kids
that don't have any health insurance. And just last week, I directed
Federal agencies with programs with children to do more to enroll
children as quickly as possible.
This Patients' Bill of Rights is the next important step to make
sure every American family has the quality health care all families need
to thrive. It's especially important as our health care system continues
to change.
Now, 35 years ago, President Kennedy proposed a consumer bill of
rights to protect Americans from unsafe products. He said, ``We share an
obligation to protect the common interests in every decision we make.''
Those rights are still protecting us today, those consumer rights, every
time we rent a car or use a credit card or buy a toy for a child. The
rights we are helping here to establish with the Patients' Bill of
Rights will protect our children and our grandchildren 35 years from now
and beyond.
This is a good day for America, and I am proud to sign the executive
memorandum to ensure the Patients' Bill of Rights to nearly 90 million
of our fellow citizens.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks,
he referred to Brig. Gen. Mack C. Hill, USA, U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon
General for Force Management; Isiah Leggett, president, Montgomery
County Council; Elizabeth Layton, vice chair, Holiday Park Senior Center
Advisory Council; and Martin Wish, former chair, Montgomery County
Commission on Aging.